Suggestions and Guidelines
for Peer-Group Editing
of Position Paper #2

1. When you get into your small groups, introduce yourselves quickly, and share copies of your papers with each other.

2. Choose one paper to discuss first. (Suggestion: Go in alphabetical order by family name.)

3. After spending about 10-15 minutes on the first paper, move on to the next, going back to step (2) above, changing roles.
   Spend no more than 15 minutes per paper (because you've only got about 45 minutes at most).
   Perhaps one member of the group can be a timekeeper.

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4. For each paper, ask as many of the following questions as you have time for:
   1. Did the author state whether and why they did or did not agree with Knuth's definition in premise 1?
      • Note: Knuth's definition is a conjunction of 5 things: 1a & 1b & 1c & 1d & 1e.
        So, in disagreeing with premise #1, an author must
        1. explicitly disagree with (at least) one of 1a..1e
        2. and say why they disagree with that part (or those parts).
      1. If the author agreed and gave reasons for agreeing, do you agree with those reasons? Why?

      2. If the author disagreed and gave reasons for disagreeing, do you agree with those reasons? Why?

   2. Did the author state whether and why they did or did not agree with the claim about the nature of programming languages in premise 2?
      (Plus questions (i) and (ii), above.)

   3. Did the author state whether and why they did or did not agree with the claim about the "Turing-equivalence" of programming languages in premise 3?
      (Plus questions (i) and (ii), above.)

   4. Did the author state whether and why they did or did not agree with the claim and/or the examples in premise 4?
      (Plus questions (i) and (ii), above.)

   5. Did the author state whether and why they believe that conclusion 5 does or does not validly follow from premises 1-4?
      • Do you agree with their evaluation?

   6. If the author believes that conclusion 5 follows soundly from premises 1-4,
      then they should state that they believe conclusion 5 for that reason.
      Do they?
      1. On the other hand, if the author believes that conclusion 5 does not follow
         (either because one or more of the premises is false or because the argument is invalid),
         then did the author state whether and why they did or did not agree with the statement made in the conclusion?
         (Plus questions (a)(i) and (a)(ii), above.)

      2. Note that if the author believes that the argument is unsound,
         that is not a sufficient reason for disbelieving the claim!
         (That's because even a valid argument can have both false premises and a true conclusion (or a false one),
         and even an invalid argument can have a true conclusion (or a false one).
         The only thing that can't happen is to have a valid argument both with true premises and with a false conclusion.)

   7. If the author believes that conclusion 6 follows soundly from statement 5 considered as a premise along with some or all of the previous statements in the argument (and possibly along with one or more missing premises!), then they should state that they believe conclusion 6 for that reason. Do they?
      • On the other hand, if the author believes that conclusion 6 does not follow
        (either because one or more of its premises is false or because the argument is invalid),
        then did the author state whether and why they did or did not agree with the statement made in the conclusion?
        (Plus questions (a)(i) and (a)(ii), above.)

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5. Keep a written record of the questions and replies. This will be useful to the author, for revision.

6. At home, over the next week, please revise your paper to take into consideration the comments made by your fellow students (i.e., your "peers"):
   Perhaps defend your claims better, or clarify statements that were misunderstood, etc.
   For help, see me.